old.[4]

Voltaire was not kept long in the Bastille. For some time he had
entertained a vague intention of visiting England, and he now begged for
permission to leave the country. The authorities, whose one object was
to prevent an unpleasant _fracas_, were ready enough to substitute exile
for imprisonment; and thus, after a fortnight's detention, the 'fameux
poète' was released on condition that he should depart forthwith, and
remain, until further permission, at a distance of at least fifty
leagues from Versailles.

It is from this point onwards that our information grows scanty and
confused. We know that Voltaire was in Calais early in May, and it is
generally agreed that he crossed over to England shortly afterwards. His
subsequent movements are uncertain. We find him established at
Wandsworth in the middle of October, but it is probable that in the
interval he had made a secret journey to Paris with the object--in which
he did not succeed--of challenging the Chevalier de Rohan to a duel.
Where he lived during these months is unknown, but apparently it was not
in London. The date of his final departure from England is equally in
doubt; M. Foulet adduces some reasons for supposing that he returned
secretly to France in November 1728, and in that case the total length
of the English visit was just two and a half years. Churton Collins,
however, prolongs it until March 1729. A similar obscurity hangs over
all the details of Voltaire's stay. Not only are his own extant letters
during this period unusually few, but allusions to him in contemporary
English correspondences are almost entirely absent. We have to depend
upon scattered hints, uncertain inferences, and conflicting rumours. We
know that he stayed for some time at Wandsworth with a certain Everard
Falkener in circumstances which he described to Thieriot in a letter in